The dream of a child that became reality, being a great consumer and lover of artisanal gelato, not finding my expectations of quality in the many available second rate gelati, and meeting a renowned master of gelato who had a famous gelateria in Rome since 1941, these are the “ingredients” that have made my adventure possible. My family’s love of food and my hypercaloric diet put gelato in a position of preeminence;
I ate gelato of every type but as my tastes matured I searched for quality above all. While I was attending school in the Prati district of Rome, I discovered a renowned gelateria that became my standard for quality until it unexpectedly and tragically closed in the summer of 2008. At that time my profession was as a restorer of religious art working for a leading company in this field that was founded by my father in the 1960s; this had become my sole occupation after graduating in economy and business in 1992. This company of my father’s was sold at the end of 2006, and I decided to part ways with the new owner in 2011. I began to occupy myself with the building trades, but I did not feel myself committed to
this new reality and I began seriously to consider opening an artisanal gelateria but not in the usual way the word “artisanal” was bandied about by most gelateria, but rather artisanal as in the result of a process that uses only ingredients of utmost quality, without using any powdered or premixed ingredients. Thus I wrote a letter to the master of gelato, but he was out of Rome and did not read it; then I tried again several weeks later and he, together with his wife, kindly agreed to meet me. He remembered me but it was obvious that he knew of me simply as another customer. I do not know how to explain what happened next, but he must have been impressed by my enthusiasm and desire to get his advice for setting up the new gelateria, and he did not hold back giving me the benefit of his experience in suggestions, stories, recipes and anecdotes such that I finally asked him to write it down for me in a book. And so I was able to undertake this new challenge, starting a new life at 46 years old, possessed with a steely passion and deep love for good gelato. I was to venture in a new activity, absolutely unthinkable only two years before, guided by a kind of invisible hand and a boundless passion!
